Monet users to be eligible for ePIP

Written by Kate McDonald on 07 January 2013.

General practice users of the Monet patient management and clinical software package will be eligible for the government's new eHealth Practice Incentive Program (ePIP), with confirmation from the product's vendor, Cloud9 Software, that it is close to achieving its compliance certificates for the initial requirements of the new program.

Monet, first developed by Monet Technologies in the early 2000s and purchased by IBA Health in 2005, subsequently became part of iSOFT in 2009 and was then sold to Cloud9 in 2011. It is used extensively within the IPN group of medical centres.

Monet has been listed on NEHTA's ePIP product register for electronic transfer of prescriptions capability and is expected to be listed for secure messaging and the HI Service before February 1, Cloud9 business systems consultant Kylie Rose said.

“We are going through NATA compliance at the moment and we have received our [notice of connection], so we are just going through our last accreditation now before we can be published on the NEHTA pre-approved software website,” Ms Rose said.

Ms Rose said Monet would also be capable of full PCEHR access by the deadline of May 1.

Monet has been listed alongside Cloud9's new offering, Clarity, which is being developed to replace the older architecture, she said. Clarity has also been listed as ETP compliant.

“Clarity is based on the .NET framework and is a .NET development application that will ultimately become cloud-based,” Ms Rose said. “The architecture that Monet is built on is a bit redundant and our ability to expand functionality within that application is very difficult.

“Fundamentally the two applications are aligned to each other, but we are building the Clarity application as the next generation.”

She said that depending on IPN's schedule, Cloud9 will begin transitioning most if not all Monet sites to Clarity over the next 12 months, starting with the patient management system in phase one and then the clinical suite.

“The transition will be fairly minimal,” she said. “The Clarity application assimilates Monet – the look and feel of it is quite different but the functionality seems quite similar.

“We hope in the next 12 months that the majority of Monet stand-alone sites will be transitioned. The reconstruction process is fairly quick and robust – we think it will take no more than an hour for the PMS.”